When technology makes it possible, our brains will be ready to be teleported across space – study

Teleportation may stay in the realm of science fiction for the foreseeable future, but scientists say that our brains already react favorably to instantaneously being transported across space.

In a study published in the journal Neuron on Thursday, neuroscientists from the University of California, Davis studied how the brain would react if it were to be “beamed up” from one place to another using a virtual simulation.

When volunteers entered a virtual teleportation device ‒ similar to the ones made famous in the Star Trek franchise ‒ researchers found that that their brains gave off certain “rhythmic oscillations” of electric signals like the ones that a rat brain creates when the animal navigates a maze.

Arne Ekstrom, associate professor at the UC Davis’ Centre for Neuroscience, conducted the study to learn more about how people memorizes routes and learn to find our way around.

“There is this rhythmic firing in the brain during navigation and while remembering things, but we don’t know if it is triggered by sensory input or by the learning process,” Ekstrom said in a statement.